


Scenes of Soldiers

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Other, Vignette, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three vaguely related scenes of the lives lived before Deathstroke, before Batman, and even before the Martian Manhunter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes of Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Technically, Alfred's surname in the first snippet should be Beagle. This piece of trivia is oft-forgotten, and I chose not to use it for want of having the character recognized.
> 
> 2\. I play with the ages a bit on Wintergreen. What canon we have makes it possible he could have fought in WWII, but only if his father's dealings were done on Hitler's rise in Germany, well before the war actually began.

"You do realize you are completely, utterly mad."

"Oh don't be so daft, and give me a hand!"

The slightly younger of the two agents moved close, his keen eyes on the lookout for any Germans or their French underlings.

"How do I let you talk me into these things, Wintergreen?"

The other man ignored his partner, finally managing to pick the lock that had stood between them and the most daring plot they had managed to cobble together yet.

"Would you rather continue to enjoy the hospitality here? Or return to the English stages to perform runs of Wagner instead of Shakespeare?"

"Don't be so brutal; England will not fall."

//So foolishly optimistic.// Wintergreen knew just how close it had come, before even the first shots had rung out.

But then his father had been...

Memory of the disgrace was enough to prod the young man further into the building. After tonight, the Resistance would have proper layouts of the various German officials' residences.

From there, it just required more men of action.

"If we do our task right, Pennyworth, England will stand, and we will have our pick of wines from the French."

"I still say you're mad, but war makes madmen of us all."

* * *

It all began with a dance. She was the brilliant, beautiful belle of the ball in shockingly red satin, and he was the ever-charming rogue, with neither quite what they seemed. In the East German uniform he wore, he was commanding enough, and the accent he used passed muster. The sidelong glances to the blond with the mustache along one wall, also in East German uniform went unnoticed by most, but she was far from being most.

She let him monopolize her attention, conversing just the right amount to help him maintain his interest in her beyond the obvious physical attraction, as they each pursued their agendas. The separation, she to the powder room and he for a brief meeting with an officer...not the blond, she noted in passing...could not have happened more smoothly if they had rehearsed it a million times.

She reached out, feeling the flavor of him, of the blond, though that one was more wary, shielded more naturally. Neither were native, but she had suspected that in the way her escort had danced; the Germans seemed to have lost their passion for it, from what little she had experienced to date of the activity.

Whereas she was here to observe, to learn, to try and fathom that which separated a people on harsh political choices, they were here with heroism in mind. Plans to steal, to aid the West, or so her dance-partner revealed as he slipped into the shadows to steal away upstairs.

The guards, for some of the military men were nothing more than that, began to mill, as if responding to an unseen threat. As a small squad made for the stairs, she made her own move, shrieking at the top of her lungs and pointing indiscriminately at the floor, prompting a panic at the idea a rat had made its way into the ballroom. The throng blocked the stairs, buying a touch of time for the rogue she had danced with.

His flavor was one she would never forget, as the night stole he and the blond away, safe from their mission to help the West overcome the East's vile plans. She sighed to herself at those thoughts; neither side could read the other, or know all the manipulations in place.

Still, the dancing had been enough to convince her of one man's heart, and give her a memory to hold against the evils of this world.

`~`~`~`~`

He was older, his hair lost in the war of nerves that Bruce Wayne had to be, J'onn noted. The flavor...that was the part that struck his mind hard, reminding him of a time when he was still learning humanity, a time when he was trying to decide what amounted to good and evil in the terms of those humans he was forced to dwell among. The large green alien let nothing show, as he accepted the plate of cookies...oh how well Bruce knew him now...and the milk. His eyes did light, though, at how easily Alfred, as he now knew the man was called, accepted his presence.

Such a serene presence in his mind, pressing against memories with pleasant familiarity...and J'onn caught himself in shock as Alfred looked straight into his eyes.

"Forgive me, Mister Jones, but I had the strangest impression we may have met before," Alfred said, in dignified, crisp English.

"Perhaps, in some other life," J'onn replied, truth, for that belle was long gone, as was the role of a spy in service to Her Majesty.

"Perhaps," Alfred agreed, and let the thought betray the knowledge, as crisp German uniforms were lined up against the sparkle of a beautiful red dress in the landscape of his mind.

* * *

There was an unspoken agreement between them. One had moved on, taken on a new life, and become something of a force behind a burgeoning heroic force. The other had taken his skills and moved into the typical after-action life of a mercenary, allied to the world's most preeminent version of the same. Therefore, each would pretend not to know the other where anyone might remark on it, especially the younger men of their separate lives.

However, there were times when their paths crossed quite by purpose and design. Operations that were disavowed by the British authorities, that had seen good men die and be lost in the shuffle of plausible denial, were to be remembered by those who had survived them.

Wintergreen was generally more able to be away without drawing attention to the fact than Pennyworth, and so it was that they met in a quiet pub not too far from Gotham City. Wintergreen had acquired a corner table, and Pennyworth spotted him swiftly, coming over with no fuss or special hurry to sit. They sized each other up, seeing the stress of years and lines of service in one another. Privately, each thought that Pennyworth was weathering it better, as the years didn't seem to be adding up as swiftly for him.

How many more years would they both share this remembrance?

The waiter, seeing both men seated, came over with the scotch Wintergreen had ordered on entering, just as he'd been told to. Each of the men picked up the tumblers, raising them to one another.

"Absent comrades," Pennyworth said softly.

"Fallen friends," Wintergreen answered, just as quiet, before they shared their drinks in memory to time served.

The ritual completed, there would be conversation and reminiscing. They were determined that memory not fail the fallen soldiers.


End file.
